The Symbolist Movement in Literature

Arthur Symons (1865–1945) was one of the most active editors, poets, critics and translators of the Victorian fin de siècle. He contributed to the Yellow Book, edited the Savoy, and translated works by Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé and Emile Zola among others, as well as publishing several collections of his own poetry, including Silhouettes (1892) and London Nights (1895). His work is central to understanding the impact of Decadence and Symbolism on English literature. He was particularly infl uential on the early modernist writers, helping to introduce poets such as T.S. Eliot to nineteenth-century French literature. Although he lived until 1945, his later career was overshadowed by a mental breakdown he experienced in 1908.

Matthew Creasy is a lecturer in English literature at the University of Glasgow. He has published essays and articles on the work of James Joyce, William Empson and Virginia Woolf.